Compliance officers, such as environmental compliance officers, typically gather information about effluents, emissions, exhausts, etc., coming from a plant or facility based on issued permits from state, federal, or local agencies for that plant or facility. For certain organizations, especially those with multiple sites in various jurisdictions, the permitting requirements may vary widely, thus requiring the compliance officer to negotiate the differences between each permitted site as the officer travels from site to site collecting the information needed for the particular reporting they do (environmental compliance, construction compliance, safety inspections, and any other location-based reporting). After collecting the information, the compliance officer will return to their office to report the data and, at least in the case of environmental permits, compare the data to the permitted effluent/exhaust limitations. Once reported and compared, the data may need to be reported to the relevant agency, and in the case of a violation or potential or possible violation, the information also needs to be transmitted to a responsible party/decision maker.
As is evident, the process of obtaining, recording, comparing, and transmitting compliance data is prone to inaccuracies, fraudulent activities, and delays that may put the organization or human lives at risk. Furthermore, there is no ability to audit when and where the data was collected, i.e., the actual GPS location and the date and time on which the data was gathered, and if all the data was collected at the same time. As such, there is no way to guarantee that the inspection was actually performed on-site (i.e., at a location that was part of the site inspection) or was manipulated to avoid compliance issues. Due to the significant opportunities for error and/or outright fraud in the current methods for collecting and processing inspection data, companies are at risk for possible penalties and fines for noncompliance or for not responding quickly (enough) to problem areas.